It was a little after 8:30 in the morning when Nikolai Winchester woke up. The sunlight hitting the inside of his eyelids was the first thing the boy registered. He laid there in the downy comforters for a moment, relishing the fact that he wasn’t in the infirmary anymore, and his injuries had almost all healed up. Nik smiled, eyes still closed as if to shield his irises from the cruelties of the demigod world. He took time and care to stretch each of his limbs, pulling them from the land of sleep into the battlefield of alertness, where everything was a challenge. They were reluctant, of course, his arms and legs still wanted to go back into the dream he had previously been in. Nikolai couldn’t blame them; it was a good dream.

Because that’s what all of his nighttime visions were nowadays, dreams. There were barely any nightmares, and what little there were could easily be fended off by Nik’s skill of lucid dreaming. Of course, back in middle school he never bothered to stop the nightmares from plaguing his sleep. Times, however, had changed for the boy in the bed. Suddenly, Nikolai opened his eyes, and remembered where he was supposed to be right now. He jumped from the bunk and pulled on some dark washed jeans, not bothering to change the soft crumpled orange T-shirt he had fallen asleep in. He was a stupid demigod that forgot things that ought not be forgotten. Things like dates with your girlfriend that could chop off your head without a moments notice.

Slipping on some black converse, Nikolai ran out the door, slipping on the dewy grass outside. He didn’t fall, and that made him happy. He didn’t like the idea of him going to the kitchen to meet Livia all covered in dirt and grass and water. As it was, Nik already had a bunch of stuff that could be used against him when it came to Liv. She had seen his baby pictures from the time she read his journal, and she knew what a wimp Nik was, though he was trying to fix that. There was one thing that Livia Malcolm didn’t know about Nikolai Winchester, and he intended to keep it that way, because that secret could destroy their relationship and that was a risk Nik was not willing to take. Not now, not ever.

Nikolai was an idiot, coming up with this kind of date. With normal couples, cooking breakfast together was considered cute and fluffy and a rite with passage. However, he and Livia were anything but normal, and it wasn’t just because they were both deadly demigods. Both were broken records, so to speak, and both picked up the pieces of their significant other, taping the shards back into place. Nik had a problem with eating too, which was to say, he didn’t eat hardly at all. So really, cooking breakfast wasn’t the brightest idea he’d ever had. Then again, no one could argue that Nikolai wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Still, he felt like he owed Livia, since their last date had been ruined by monsters. They hadn’t had a moment of peace and quiet since then, unless you counted the times that Livia had come and visited Nikolai in the infirmary, and he didn’t because half the time he was sleeping off the pain he was feeling, and he didn’t know what he was doing or saying. So, in Nikolai’s mind, this was their first date. He stepped inside the kitchen, looking around to see if Livia had beaten him.

Livia had left the window open. Now she realized that was a stupid idea, as the sunlight hit her eyes and the birds chirped at 7:35 and Livia was not a happy camper. She had woken up early, not screaming but with tears on her face and blood on her hand (perhap she had scratched herself in the middle of the night), but other than that, she was okay. Okay as in satisfactory but not exceptionally or especially good, the medium between good and bad. Livia Malcolm was okay, besides for the long gash on her face, unknown to her, and the bags beneath her eyes.

Liv wiped the blood off her palm with an old rag and tried to shake off the dream. Tried to shake off the funny feeling she was having that Quell or Faye did not stir. Tried to elude the idea that whatever nightmares she was having, the others’ must have been worse that they wouldn’t wake up. Putting on a tee shirt and jeans, Livia shoved her foot into a pair of old sneakers. Heading out the door, (Livia always forgot to close it), she sprinted towards the forest. She ran fast and faster and faster, trying to keep herself panting so she couldn’t scream. By the time the camp started to stir, she realized she was already late to meet Nik.

How she had gotten roped into cooking breakfast with her boyfriend, Livia had no idea. She desperately tried to tell him that she couldn’t cook to save her life, first telling him the story of how she had put some tinfoil in the oven when she was 5 and blew up the kitchen (luckily they were redoing the house anyways), and then tried to tell him about the time when she had given Quell food poisoning (the last time she had ever touched the kitchen stove), but Nik wouldn’t listen. He insisted she would be good at this, no matter how many times she rejected the notion.

And here she was, covered in sweat and a gross camp tee, sitting on the floor of the kitchen, eating chocolate chips. Livia was okay without Nik for a couple of minutes, but she wondered where he was. It was okay, she had chocolate.”Nik!” Livia said, giving him a genuine smile (or as genuine as Liv could get) and tugging at his arm to get herself up despite the fact that Livia was perfectly capable of getting herself up. ”I see you’ve managed to stay alive.” Liv nodded, attempting a joke despite how unfunny it really was. ”Now if you can stay alive and not get blown up by the oven, then I’ll be really impressed.”

Nikolai smiled and laughed a little as Liv started talking. He didn't know much about her past, only that she suffered from severe nightmares. He didn't press the subject, because he of all people knew that sometimes the past was better left buried. If Livia ever felt like confiding in him about what made her so prone to screaming in the dead of night, then Nik would happily listen and help her the best that he could, but until then, the boy remained silent. He noticed the bags under her eyes, but he didn't say anything as she helped herself up using his arm. The problem with that was Nik wasn't necessarily strong enough to hold her, and she'd caught him off guard, which really wasn't hard to do. Nikolai always had his head stuck in the clouds, and it took him a while to snap back to reality. He wobbled a bit as Liv stood up, but eventually regained his balance. Being helplessly underweight didn't help. Just like he didn't know about Liv's past, Liv didn't know about Nik's. The demigod wanted to keep it that way, because like he said, somethings were not meant to be uncovered. Nikolai was afraid of telling Liv, not because she would think him a monster, but because she would demand him to get help. That's what happened when he told Sam and Cas about it, and it ended him up in the clinic. So no, he had no plans on telling Livia about his anorexia anytime soon.

"Oh ye have little faith." Nik said, his face still plastered with a grin. Actually, he didn't have much faith himself in the matter. Everywhere he went, trouble seemed to follow. Nikolai blamed it on his demigod genes, and it could possibly be linked to that. His mother, after all, was the goddess of starvation, and wasn't it ironic that her son have an eating disorder? Nik thought it was. His demigod genes could also be the cause of the mass amount of injuries he had sustained in the past four months. First was the NEYB, where he'd literally been dead for 5 minutes, and Nikolai still wasn't clear on how exactly he was brought back. He wouldn't have minded being dead except for the fact that for the first time in forever, someone actually needed him. Then, while he was recovering from those battle wounds, Liv's brother came and beat him up. Nikolai couldn't blame Quell for doing that. It sure hurt though. Sometimes Nik still had ferocious headaches as a result of it.

"Who says we're gonna use the oven? I was thinking something less deadly like frozen waffles. Gods know we can't screw those up." But with Nik's luck, they'd probably end up burning the food and scorching the ceiling. It was just a side effect of hanging out with Nikolai Winchester. He went over to the freezer and picked up a box, opening it and getting the waffles out of the cellophane wrapping. "How many do you want?" He asked Livia, turning back to her.

ooc- sorry if it's short. 8 o'clock in the morning posts are not my forte :/